THUUUMP
THUUUMP
THUUUMP
Ryuk’s eyes narrowed as he turned to his feet on the golden sand, noticing that his entire body was jumping up by an inch with every single thump reverberating through the ground.
He raised an eyebrow, looking at the monster walking toward him.
"What type of monster is this?" Ryuk wondered, brow furrowed as he stared at the walking calamity approaching him.
It was a humanoid creature, about 10 meters in height. Each arm, as long as 5 meters, ended in claws so gigantic they were around a meter in size—each claw nearly half as tall as Ryuk himself.
The creature’s head was a crown of horns, with two especially eye-catching horns jutting from both sides of its head and curving downward in an open angular arc.
Its eyes burned a bright yellow, and where its mouth ought to be were golden teeth, clenched together tightly to form a permanent, grinning monster face.
It was the first monster Ryuk had seen grinning instead of snarling.
At the center of its chest, there was an eye-catching golden whirlpool, rotating within—seemingly the core of its power. Around its body, shadowy particles undulated.
But then Ryuk’s eyebrows furrowed as he tried to sense what that energy truly was, and upon realizing it, he unconsciously backed up two steps.
"That energy... That’s no shadow energy. That’s abyssal energy!" Ryuk thought in shock, his eyes narrowing, confusion flashing through them.
He knew well this was but a holographic world and none of these things were real, but still, he was surprised.
The entire world knew that only the Knulls could control Abyssal Energy.
There should be no other graphical representation of a monster oozing with Abyssal Energy save for the Knulls, yet here was a monster walking toward him, grinning from ear to ear, while emanating a crazy amount of Abyssal Energy.
Any cultivator might have mistaken that energy for shadow energy, but Ryuk could feel it in his bones.
This was an Abyssal monster.
An Abyssal monster that wasn’t a Knull.
"Just what type of monster is this?" Ryuk asked no one in particular for the second time, as the monster got closer and he could finally begin hearing the mind-scraping grinning sounds it made.
[Congratulations, Host.]
[You have come across a 65% accurate holographic image of a True Fallen!]
"A... A True Fallen?" Ryuk asked, but the system remained silent right after.
"Hey, system. You mean like the Half-Fallen One, True Fallen?" Ryuk pressed on, and the system finally flashed.
[Yes, Host. You already know the Half-Fallen One. She’s a Fallen Angel, right?]
[But has the Host ever thought that there would be more than the ’Half’ that was put in her name?]
"I... I thought it was just a Fallen Angel title or something," Ryuk replied.
[No. The Fallen Angels have their hierarchies, according to the information newly revealed in the system’s database.]
[The Half-Fallen One, Morgiane’s mother, is a Half-Fallen in the Fallen Angel hierarchy. But this monster... this monster is a True Fallen One in the hierarchy!]
The system said this, and Ryuk’s eyes flashed in shock. Yet, in the very next instant, all of the hairs on his body stood on end as he felt an aura undulate just an inch before him, as if his face had been placed an inch before a furnace.
The monster, which Ryuk had calculated would take about ten more seconds before reaching him, suddenly teleported before him.
And now, instead of immediately attacking, it simply looked down on Ryuk from above, as Ryuk raised his head to see the smiling Fallen.
"KEKEKEKEKEKEKEKE!"
A bizarre grin left the monster’s lips, as he felt the overpowering Abyssal energy—it didn’t pale in the slightest to that of the Knull King he had fought before.
And a second later...
A total of ten circular shockwaves appeared where Ryuk was standing, and a figure burst into massive, scorching flames, blown erratically away for close to ten kilometers, dragging through the hot earth and stacking it up until it formed a 50-meter-tall mountain.
At the foot of this mountain was none other than Ryuk, his clothes reduced to rags, his eyes still lost in shock.
But the next words that came out of Ryuk’s lips were...
"Hey, system... could it be that the Fallen Angels have something to do with the Knulls too? Could there be a possibility of there being a link? A link where they both are Abyssal creatur—"
Ryuk had yet to complete those words when he felt the weight of the world slam onto his head, as a pillar-like leg, covered in shadowy Abyssal energy, crashed straight down onto him, cracking open an endless dark abyss where his body continued distorting downward, swallowed by the darkness.
[I don’t know, Ryuk. Why are you so interested? You’re literally bleeding from a ten-centimeter-long crack in your skull!] the system shot back, but Ryuk’s gaze remained unfocused.
"The only creatures that Endearthians know can control Abyssal Energy are the Knulls."
"This entire test is but a simulation of something most likely true, crafted by the Adventurers Guild."
"That means that somehow, in one way or the other, the croc monsters and the spiny wolves I fought before should be real creatures whose details were all turned into holographs."
"Could it be... that this Fallen before me could actually have been a living creature at one time in the past? Or else, how would Endearthians have gotten the imagination to put in a monster who controls Abyssal Energy apart from the Knulls?"
"Even I only know there are other creatures that control Abyssal Energy apart from the Knulls because of the Medysla World."
"Endearthians shouldn’t know of any race that can use Abyssal Energy."
"So just who? Just who crafted out this holographic world?"
"And there’s a Hierarchy in the Fallen Angel that can control Abyssal Energy instead of Apex Energy?"
Ryuk continued muttering as he felt his body finally stop crashing through the earth. He slammed down onto the surface, buried within the sand.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
The sound of the earth sinking rang out once more as he burst out of his head from beneath the sand, only to see those shining golden eyes walking toward him with the same twisted grin.
"This... Now this is really interesting!"